Hatchet Job 'study' by the so-called 'National Council on Teacher Quality' gets a closer examination and gets an 'F' for shoddy research and biased motivations
The situation is no longer as bad as it was during the final years of the Clinton administration and the years of the George W. Bush administration, but the hired guns of corporate "school reform" are still out there, and replicating like some science fiction creature to continue the teachers bashing, union busting and privatization agendas that were begun seriously during the 1990s and which have continued through today. The latest example: the so-called 'National Council on Teacher Quality" (NCTQ), which just issued a preliminary report claiming that teacher preparation programs in the United States are failing. A closer look shows that NCTQ is failing -- failing to do a serious job in its "research" and showing the usual biases brought to the public by those who are subsidized by the ruling class to teacher bash, union bust, and push the privatization agendas.
Anyone who wants to can read the full "report," which is available at the NCTQ website in PDF format. As Diane Ravitch puts it, the NCTQ is really a conservative propaganda group. Anyone who might doubt the assessment of NCTQ might consider the groups that endorse NCTQ. In Illinois, they include every teacher bashing entity, virtually all Astroturf outfits, from "Advance Illinois" to DFER. The "research" of NCTQ, as the study below shows, is as biased as the propaganda coming from the organizational endorsers of NCTQ.
The critical analysis of the latest NCTQ "study" comes from Penn State University:
Shaky Methods, Shaky Motives... A Critique of the National Council of Teacher Quality�s Review of Teacher Preparation Programs, by Edward J. Fuller, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA (Edward J. Fuller, Penn State University, 204D Rackley Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, USA. Email: ejf20@psu.edu).
ABSTRACT: The National Council on Teacher Quality�s (NCTQ) recent review of university-based teacher preparation programs concluded the vast majority of such programs were inadequately preparing the nation�s teachers. The study, however, has a number of serious flaws that include narrow focus on inputs, lack of a strong research base, missing standards, omitted research, incorrect application of research findings, poor methodology, exclusion of alternative certification programs, failure to conduct member checks, and failure to use existing evidence to validate the report�s rankings. All of these issues render the NCTQ report less than useful in efforts to understand and improve teacher preparation programs in the United States. The article also suggests alternative pathways NCTQ could have undertaken to work with programs to actually improve teacher preparation. The article concludes by noting that the shaky methods used by NCTQ suggest shaky motives such that the true motives of NCTQ for producing the report must be questioned.
Readers can go to the complete report if they want...
